Cars Land

A few months ago while Daxton and I were playing toys in our living room, I turned the TV on to find Cars 2 playing.  Daxton immediately dropped his toys, crawled to the TV, stood a couple inches from the screen, and began bouncing to the soundtrack.  I clearly remember him turning back to look at me with the biggest smile on his face and eyes lit up.  Thus began our family's love affair with Disney Pixar's franchise, Cars.
Since then, Daxton has continued to show more and more interest in Cars and loves to push his little car characters around the hard wood floors in our apartment.  I mentioned in the last post that we extended our San Diego trip an extra day with the sole purpose to visit Cars Land at Disney California Adventure Park.  
It did not disappoint!

By the time we arrived at Cars Land, Daxton was fast asleep for his mid morning nap.  It actually worked out perfectly, because Hadley had fallen asleep as well.  Michelle, Nate, and Brooks stood in line for "Tow-Mater's Tractor Pull" while Dallas and I pushed the sleeping babies around.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to explore Cars Land and take all the pictures I wanted before Daxton woke up.  Dallas was, once again, the most patient husband posing and smiling in each of the pictures!

Family portrait
(sleeping baby and all)

(Top Left: Our whole gang, Perkins and DeMary Families.  Top Right: Nate, Michelle, and Brooks entering Radiator Springs.  Bottom left: Dallas and I posing with one of Mator's tractors.  Bottom Right: exhausted babies, Hadley and Daxton.)

Entering Radiator Springs via Route 66

I absolutely LOVE the attention to detail Disney is so famous for.

Top Left: Fillmore's Taste-In.  A spot for great refreshing beverages (my dad would have loved it there!)  Top Right: looking down to Radiator Springs skyline.  Bottom Left: Sarge's Surplus.  Bottom Right: Radiator Spring's Curios both are shops where you can buy all sorts of memorabilia.

The Cozy Cone Motel

Each cone sold different yummy treats (churros, icecream, drinks, etc.)  This was also the location that you could wait in line to take pictures with different characters.

Standing on Route 66 looking towards Radiator Springs skyline with Luigi's Tires in the background.  Several of the disney workers were passing out different Cars Land pins to the children.  They handed one to our sleeping Daxton.

Flo's Diner

We ate here for lunch and the food was fantastic.  Daxton loved his mac n cheese, while I ate the most fantastic grilled chicken salad.  We ate around the side of the building which had amazing views of Radiator Springs Ornament Valley.

We walked around Flo's Diner to find the most amazing views of Radiator Springs Ornament Valley.

While we were watching the cars drive by, our little guy finally woke up.  He was quite confused (having fallen asleep after Monster's Inc and waking up to loud noises of cars zooming past.)

It only took Daxton a minute to realize where he was and immediately got excited and wanted to grab the cars zipping by.  I love the post nap sweaty, messy hair!

Watching the Radiator Springs Racers ride.

Since both Hadley and Daxton had woken up, we decided to head back over to Tow Mater's Tractor ride to meet up with Michelle, Nate, and Brooks.  While they were on the ride we took some fun family pictures with one of Mater's tractors.

Daxton wasn't too thrilled about sitting on top, but he loved standing and playing with the exhaust pipe.

Tow Mater's Tractor Ride

Disney is great with allowing child swap options for parents.  When Michelle and Nate were done riding, Dallas and I were able to hop right on instead of waiting in line.  Brooks wanted to ride another time, so he hopped in my tractor.  That tractor really swung us hard a few times so I was glad that we weren't all three sitting in a tractor together!

My little riding buddy, Brooks.

After riding the tractor pull, we all decided to eat lunch at Flo's Diner.  Dallas found great seats on the side of the building looking at Ornament Valley.  As we were eating lunch we had no idea that we were sitting right next to where the characters entered and exited Cars land.  We were able to see Lightening McQueen, Mater, and Red all drive right next to where we were eating lunch.

It was so funny to watch Daxton's expressions.  He would get super excited and tense his whole body up while kicking his legs excitedly.  He even waved as Mater drove by.

Brooks was most excited about Red.  He's been super into firetrucks lately.  He even ran down to greet Red when he saw him coming.

Daxton also loved Red until later when we were standing right next to him to get a picture and Red sounded his loud siren.  Daxton lost it mid picture!

Watching Red drive by.

After lunch at Flo's, we walked along Route 66 to the entrance of Radiator Springs Racers.  The ride had been having technical difficulties and had to close down for a couple hours, so we ended up just getting pictures by the landscape instead, the kids were too small to ride on it anyway and we still needed to check out the rest of California Adventures and then head over to Disneyland before the day was through.

We couldn't leave without getting pictures with the founder of Radiator Springs, good ole Stanley.

As we were leaving we found Lightening McQueen at the Cozy Cone Motel.  It was the perfect way to say goodbye to Cars Land!

We had so much fun at Cars Land and I'm so glad we were able to see it before moving.  We weren't able to go on the Racers or Luigi's Flying Tires rides due to maintenance issues and long lines, but I guess that just means we will need to come back again soon.  We had a great time and our little man loved it too.

Disney California Adventure Park

A couple months ago, our good friends and neighbors, the DeMary's, invited us to join them on a trip to San Diego.  We've spent the last few weeks excitedly planning our adventures.  When Dallas and I decided we were going to move to Florida in August, I immediately started making a list of all the things we needed to see and do before leaving.  After a lot of research (yes, I spent hours researching and getting totally excited about the DisneyWorld parks) I realized that the new Carsland was only located at the Disney California Adventure Park.  Cars and Cars 2 are literally the only two movies that Daxton will show any interest in so needless to say we have spent hours over the past few months watching them over and over and over...
How could we leave California without seeing Carsland!?
So instead of driving straight to San Diego, we and the DeMary's spent a day covering both CA Adventures and Disneyland.  It was a crazy long and busy day at both parks, but so worth it!

Photobomb Michelle!

We had driven to Anaheim the night before and stayed at a super cheap dive for the night.  Obviously it was not up to Daxton's standards because he was literally up for most of the night.  It made for a very exhausted Perkins family the next day.  It turned out great though, since Daxton ended up taking three naps throughout the course of the day in his stroller.

Hadley, Brooks, and Daxton showing how excited they were to be woken up early...

It has been over a year since we have been to the Disneyland parks in Anaheim.  In fact the last time we were here, I was a couple months pregnant with Daxton and most of CA Adventures was under construction.  It was great to see what they had added over the course of the past year and a half.  

Buena Vista Street shops 

While Dallas and Nate ran ahead to get fast passes for the Carsland Racers ride, Michelle and I took the kids to ride on Monsters Inc.  Since there was no line when we arrived, we ended up riding it a couple times before the guys got back.  As we were leaving, Sully was greeting guests.  We didn't want to wait in line, so I snapped it in between kids.

After Monsters Inc, we all headed to Bugsland.  Daxton fell asleep at this point, so we didn't feel the need to drag him out of naptime in order to ride a few rides, but Nate and Brooks had a blast on the lady bugs ride.

I'm always amazed at the detailing that Disney puts into their parks.  Each new area has so much character.  I love how at Bugsland everything is built in larger than life scale so you literally feel like a small insect maneuvering throughout the different rides.

After Bugsland, we headed towards Carsland where Dallas literally had to hold me back from bouncing out of my skin.  I was so excited!  Due to the massive amount of pictures from that stop, there will be a separate post dedicated.

After Carsland we rode the Ariel ride with all the kids.  We loved watching Daxton's different expressions while riding.  He was a bit confused, but kept wanting to go back when done.  Ariel was great because he got to sit in between mommy and daddy and there were lots of bright colors.

I love the skyline for Paradise Pier, especially with all of the gorgeous flowers.

It was great to travel with the DeMary's.  Not only are they great friends and super easy travel buddies but we got to go on all the rides as we switched watching each other's children.  I wasn't able to go on any of the fun rides last time since I was pregnant, so Dallas had a blast making fun of my squeals on each of the roller coasters.

Brooks loved being able to watch for his mom and dad on California Screamer.  Both he and Daxton were great playing along the pier.

After spending a few hours at CA Adventures we headed over to spend the rest of the day at Disneyland...which will also be another post :)